Operator

Fran was telling me the that her Mom really liked Jim Croce, and boy, that sure popped open a memory archive I didn't even know existed. I think this is one of his better songs. He had some that were nice and catchy the first time you heard them, but they got old pretty quick. They sure stuck in my memory though. Songs like Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown and Don't Mess Around With Jim. Time In A Bottle is another one that I thought was pretty good.

Jim Croce died in a plane crash in 1973 (1973! gee willikers pops, were you really alive back then?). Wikipedia had this to say about that:

Croce had just completed a concert in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and was flying to Sherman, Texas for a concert at Austin College. The pilot and all passengers (...) were killed instantly at 10:45 PM EDT on September 20, 1973, less than an hour after the end of the concert. Upon takeoff, the Beechcraft E18 plane did not gain enough altitude to clear a pecan tree at the end of the runway, which investigators said was the only tree for hundreds of yards. The official report from the NTSB^[6] hints that the charter pilot, Robert Newton Elliott, who had severe coronary artery disease and had run a portion of the three miles to the airport from a motel, may have suffered a heart attack. A later investigation placed sole blame for the accident on pilot error.

So have we lost more pop music stars through airplane crashes? Or drug overdoses?

Update September 2015 replaced missing video.
Update July 2018 replaced missing video.